OFFSTAGE: Luke Bryan Looks Back on First Music Video

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and
out of the spotlight.)

It’s been five years since Luke Bryan
made his first music video. And he’s come a long way, baby. His debut song and video, “All
My Friends Say,” were the first any of us heard of Bryan in 2007.

Bryan’s fame has skyrocketed, but what he calls
the “underlying theme of being just a good ol’ boy from Georgia” hasn’t changed. I caught up with him in Nashville after his
rehearsal for Wednesday night’s (June 6) CMT Music Awards, where he is
nominated for male video of the year, and he told me how he looks back on that first video.

“That whole young period
in your career, you can look back on yourself and go, ‘Gosh, I just didn’t know anything back then.’ But it was a magic time,
getting started in this business and not knowing whether you’d get to be what you always dreamed you’d be,” he told me. “And
to see where I’m at now and look back on that time, it was such a fun time. And it was laying the bricks and the framework
to get here, and I wouldn’t have wanted to start it off any other way. That video? I really enjoy going back and looking at
it. I’m real proud of it.”

Bryan also admitted that as he moves from just the guy with the guitar in front of the
frat house, he doesn’t want to stray too far from the artist his fans have come to know and love. “We always push the envelope,
like with the video for ‘Do I,’ but we never want to throw a massive curve
ball at the fans,” he said. “They’ve bought into what I want them to know about me, and I don’t want to change that.”